


Imperium

by Euregatto



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Forced Orgasm, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mild Gore, Origin Story, Shameless Smut, Some details from the comics that didn't make it into the movies are used here, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 00:16:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18712624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euregatto/pseuds/Euregatto
Summary: It had been easy, learning what made her tick, how her thoughts moved when her hands did, indicative of her knowledge, and touched parts of him in quizzicality—observinghim, sometimes with nails in his back, drawing blood, often with lips begging to have more of his. He allowed her the pact of their bodies, pressing all air from between them, emitting a reckless heat that she met with equal-parts cold. He doubted he would ever have enough. To feel someone’s mind, body, and soul, the redundancy of it, how the connection amplified with each lapse into familiarity. The comfort of it. Stumbling into them, falling against them.Corvus knew he would be in love forever.





	Imperium

**Author's Note:**

> Smut/character exploration story request fill for my friend, Alex.

    

  

When they first met, Proxima’s home of Xyriha had already been culled before Corvus had a chance to partake in the festivities of battle. He was elsewhere as it happened—surveying another potential world for them to conquer, a trip that would eventually yield the adoption of a little green girl—and landed just in time to witness the execution of half the populace of the capital city. Thanos had acted hastily, declaring war against a planet always in the midst of it, and Corvus arrived with the intent of leading the charge only to find piles of corpses and a victorious grin plastered on Thanos’ face.

“You missed nothing,” the Mad Titan stated. “Report your findings after we’ve finished here.”

But now Corvus itched with bloodlust. As he strode across the battlefield towards the Cull Obsidian, the scent of death slithered beneath the surface of his skin and augmentations alike, pulsing through every crevice of his lithe body. He was equal parts frustrated and dejected. No doubt he would be distracted later by the hunt of those who would defy his master, but—

But instead, he chose to focus on the shadow that breached his vision.

Proxima was dressed in a way that indicated she was an elite guard to the Xhn, the rulers of her people, as they forever waged war for territories and resources against the independent colonies from the norther hemisphere—and she was slumped where she stood, clutching at where her left arm had existed before Dwarf bit it from its socket. The wound was already clotted, an evolutionary trait the Xyrihan developed to keep their numbers up in the constant gripe of death.

She stood over one of her own as he dragged his torso across the blood-sodden ground. His legs were missing, but the handiwork could not be attributed to any one party. Proxima blankly watched him beg for mercy, watched him crawl desperately towards Thanos on a slab of overturned concrete that served as his perch while his army decimated the Xyrihan population. Ebony Maw observed her from several yards off; he gave Corvus a glance, a little sneer with a titled head. _Shall I kill her?_ But Corvus returned with a brief shake of his head.

He readied his glaive and approached her. The woman seemed detached from the momentum of time around her, trembling from loss of blood; her gaze was controlled by her concentration on the torso as it pathetically worked its way to Thanos’ pedestal.

“Are you going to attempt to save him?” Corvus mused. “Or shall I put him out of his misery?”

“This is the prince of my people," she replied matter-of-factly. "Under his rule, we are savages, taking what we want, killing for what we need—yet, look how he cowers on the edge of death. It has always been as I feared… My people deserve to perish if this is the worm we chose to follow.” She gazed at Corvus, really _gazed_ at him—skimmed him up with her eyes, and he felt himself returning the brisk intake of the sight of her, all of her. “I am Proxima, midnight watch to the Xhn.”

“Proxima Midnight,” he said, misunderstanding her speech pattern. “I am Corvus Glaive.”

“May I see your weapon, Corvus Glaive?”

He obediently reached to his belt and presented her with the cutlass he kept suspended there, in the event he ever had to stab someone who knew his form. Their hands brushed as she took it by its hilt. It occurred to him that she could kill him with his irresponsibly lowered guard, but she seemed disinterested in the intention of such an endeavor and paced up to the Xhn prince.

She struck him with her foot, sending him rolling onto his back. “Traitor!” He cried out, and then began to gag on thick, blue blood. “You will pay for your crimes against my people!”

“I highly doubt it,” she told him blatantly, and struck the cutlass between his eyes. Corvus watched her wrangle the blade out of the prince’s skull, before she turned back to him with the ghost of a smile settled on her lips, and said, “Do you understand me, Corvus Glaive? War is all I know, and like it, I know when my people have lost. There is no point to war if it is not for victory.”

“I agree.”

She smirked, then. An emotion flashed behind the filament of her eyes that he knew not the word for, but recognized how it hollowed him out and filled him up. “Wherever you are going, the wars you choose to fight—I wish to follow. Your allegiance appears to be well-placed."

And somewhere along the way, he realized _that_ was love at first sight.

    

   

~

  

  

The first time they slept together, they were aboard their ship performing reconnaissance in the outskirts of a world that would soon be ticked off Thanos’ checklist, another victory under the Black Order’s belt—and it was here that Corvus realized everything Midnight did was foreordained. Her motions, her speech. She spoke in whispers meant only for his ears, she slid her hand up his chest to learn his notches, his curves—and she received his kiss as if she had anticipated him since before her own conception.  

It had been easy after that, learning what made her tick, how her thoughts moved when her hands did, indicative of her knowledge, and touched parts of him in quizzicality— _observing_ him, sometimes with nails in his back, drawing blood, often with lips begging to have more of his. He allowed her the pact of their bodies, pressing all air from between them, emitting a reckless heat that she met with equal-parts cold.

He learned to return her silent questions with answers. With praise. He met each of her motions with his own, told her he thought she was divine— _immaculate_ , a term he had learned from the Maw when they once watched a planet collapse, leaving only genesis in its wake. “ _Absolutely immaculate_ ,” the Maw had claimed, wafting his hand and stardust gathered outside the pane of the ship into a thin trail. Back then, they had only just begun to court, but Corvus looked at Midnight then, at the whispers of light reflecting off her features, then kissed her for the first time and told himself he wished to know nothing else but her for all eternity.

It came as no surprise that they were ravenous. Corvus was aware she was experienced, and though he wished he could have been her one and only, he ensured that he would be the best she ever had. For as much as he _wanted_ her, he wanted _her_ ; he would allow this interstice of time to dredge on and on around them, until—well, he doubted he would ever have enough. To feel someone’s mind, body, and soul, the redundancy of it, how the connection amplified with each lapse into familiarity. The comfort of it. Stumbling into them, falling against them.

Corvus knew he would be in love forever.

  

  

 ~

  

  

When he proposed, it was half a decade since her recruitment, it hadn’t been anything at all what he planned it to be—he mulled over it for weeks at a time, the question faltering on his lips at the end of every conversation with her, in the reflective moments after they've unified their bodies, and he was growing tired of the almost-never saying a word about it to Thanos over cedar drinks or Dwarf when in his presence. And to say anything about it to the Maw? Absurd. He would... _frown,_ he was reserved in his beliefs and "distractions" from the goal should be smothered, as if Corvus were not Thanos' right-hand man, General over all his armies. Instead he waited until they were on a scouting mission alone, and for a majority of the ride he had his head in his hands, trying to make his mind up about something other than the proposal.

“My love,” she cooed, reaching over to touch his cheek. “What troubles you?”

“I wish to marry you.”

He said it, just like that, then wished he could retract it—she recoiled instantly as if scorched by his skin, almost in _rejection_ , but when he went to remedy his statement, he saw her. She looked…There was a time when he and Dwarf were children, before their planet was decimated by Thanos; they followed their father into the mountains to hunt wild game against his wishes and a cracked stick underfoot sent a boar in Dwarf’s direction, tusks skewing his stomach; he shook uncontrollably afterwards but his armor had deflected a majority of the blow, leaving only a shallow scar—and that was what Proxima looked like now, eyes blown open with relief and something bordering a terrified happiness.

And she kissed him.

They would unify in the ship again, as if the prospect of private quarters didn’t appeal to their sense of timing. Or perhaps, she wanted to be taken in a place they couldn’t be interrupted—on the threadbare bed in the back of the ship, in the silent, unjudging void of the cosmos. They were as ravenous as they had been the first time and every time before this, and he shook when her hand, its metal somehow colder and crueler than she, gripped his and they intertwined. He pinned her arm over her head this way, took a nipple in his mouth.

“Oh, Corvus, my love—”

“Is this a yes?” he asked.

“Of course, it is.”

He dared to move away from her, to allow his claws passage across her chest, her stomach—he wanted to feel the bumps on her flesh rise, wanted to see what he could earn from her. Her core was very much unlike the ones he had felt before. Wet, frigid but in a way that reminded him not of ice but of rain, and he slid one finger in to feel every inch of her, how she collapsed around him, how her body seized up and then shuddered, thighs closing around his hand.

“Shall I stop?” he asked, but he was teasing her.

“Never,” she said. “You are—unimaginably _warm_ , my love. I can feel— _everything_.”

Her breaths were ragged; renewed heat pooled into his stomach, hot and thick. She adjusted quickly to the sensation of him, of his torrid flesh, moving torturously within her. He easily slid a second finger into her and moved more boldly, pressing his fingertips to the rigid texture of her walls, feeling her clench and unclench desperately around him. He pumped with precision, careful with his claws, seeking what he wanted and drawing it closer, out of her; her moans grew louder, she began to writhe and her nails dragged down his ribs, drawing blood.

Then he pressed his thumb to her bud. It was a repurposed bundle of nerves he had seen on many bipedal feminine species, and hers throbbed under his touch, always accepting his hand. He could feel her pulse, wild under the surface of her skin—she snapped her fingers down to his wrist and he gazed down at her, her half-lidded eyes, cheeks flushed like watercolor paint spread thin in its basin, as beautiful as she had always been.

He ceased moving. She had never done that before. “I apologize, Midnight, did I hurt you?”

“No, I—wish to—I wish to be one with you.”

 _Ah_. She was being impatient, then. Corvus leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Soon, you will…but for now, I am giving you this.”

She nodded against his shoulder and retracted her grip. Her nails sunk into his back, reclaiming his flesh as her anchor. He wanted to feel her tremble, to make her come for him. His need was not to assert dominance because—well, he really, really wanted her to feel good by his own hand. He wanted _this_ : to feel her desperation, to bring her to a point where she finally, _finally_ reflected his own intense desire. He moved his hand, plunged his fingers into her, out of her, set a pace that had him moving fast and hard, thumb against her bud to force her towards the edge of release.

Her cries filled the belly of the ship. She started to grind her hips, calling his name, tightening around his fingers. He pushed her towards the edge and pushed her towards the edge and pushed her more until she cried out, “My love, I must—”

“Then do so,” he growled into her ear, and all at once she seized up, clenched shut around his hand, threw back her head and released with an impossibly powerful shudder, each wound muscle coming undone, eyes clenched, mouth open in a silent cry caught in her throat. Then she tumbled back down, moaning, shaking, pulsing with intense waves of aftershocks.

Slowly, he removed his fingers. Her wetness clung to him as a thin veil, and it occurred to him then that he wanted to taste her—he wanted to plunge his tongue into her in place of his hand, make her noises fill the brim of the room—

“My love,” she uttered, a prayer on her lips, trembling as she grasped his face. “Please, do not make me beg.”

Part of him thought that sounded fun for another time, but he took her leg over his arm and obliged her wish. He was painfully stiff with need. Precum dripped down his length, which was rough with hardened bumps of muscle that…well, it was an evolutionary feature his race simply never omitted from the gene pool, adverse to the ability to retain fat cells—and it took everything in his power not to release the moment he pushed into her. He entered her slowly but all at once, and she collapsed around him, arched her back, mewled with delight. Each and every time felt amazing with her. 

And then he began to move roughly, gaining momentum, the eroded texture of him pressing into her velvet walls. They were close but not close enough, coming undone, a control so desperate it became sloppy. She made a gesture of possession, wrapped her other leg around his waist and drew him in to his hilt. Whatever sensitive spot he pushed against made her yell, made her clench and tremble, made her slide over the edge into another orgasm. He committed that detail to memory. But it quickly became too much for him—her sounds, her flesh melding with his, how tight she became around him and how _perfect_ she felt—

“Midnight,” he uttered through grit teeth, “if I—I might—”

This time she said to him, “Then do so.”

He thrusted deep, sending her over the edge once more, and for a moment he didn’t believe he would give in until heat surged through his veins. He scrambled for purchase against her, unloading everything he had—it was a rush of incoherent groaning, snarling, reminding him suddenly of the first time he had ever killed someone in combat. That pivot point between primal and deliberate reaction. The entitlement of knowing this was his victory, forever.

He sank down and listened to her heartbeat, lifted like a song.

   

**Author's Note:**

> Some things I learned about Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight while reading the comics, movie character details, and Thanos: Death Sentence, which all sort of influenced some of what was written:
> 
> \- Most of the Black Order joined as adults, and do not actually consider themselves children of Thanos the way Gamora and Nebula are, but instead it seems that they act more like followers of a god  
> \- Proxima is apparently cold in body temp. while Corvus is the opposite way, and according to a video game, he apparently weighs half as much as his wife  
> \- Ebony Maw opposed Corvus and Proxima getting married, and Corvus implied that Maw thinks it would lead to the Order's downfall  
> \- Corvus calls her Midnight a lot, or at least in Death Sentence he does


End file.
